August 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

A Book Worth Reading
by Jack Gilles 09 Aug '13

09 Aug '13

Dear Colleagues, I believe the gridlock we are seeing on the national scene here in the USA is but a manifestation of the fundamental shift that is taking place in the world's polity system. Some time ago I wrote a talking paper on the emergence of our new world as we spoke about in the Urban Revolution of CS-I. But I now thing it is happening much faster than we had ever imagined. We are rapidly shifting to the primacy of the Regionalis dynamic (Area-Region-Metro) as the key to the new polity. Here is the link to a book I just heard talked about on the PBS news hour. The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy (Brookings Focus Book) I haven't ordered the Kindle edition, but I think this is a book worth reading. Upon reading the reviews you can see it touches a cord with what people intuit is the new direction for our polity. People identify with "place" and the national and state levels don't provide that kind of energy. Here is the paper I wrote. Grace & Peace, Jack

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8/08/13, Spong: Newsletter Delayed
by Ellie Stock 08 Aug '13

08 Aug '13

The Bishop Spong Newsletter for Thursday August 8th has been delayed due to a technical glitch. While we fix this situation, you may enjoy viewing videos of Bishop Spong at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Bishop+Spong%2Clong Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at johnshelbyspong.com. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 708 Broadway Suite 105 Tacoma, WA 98402 Add us to your address book

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Fwd: Thanks & update
by jbames10＠aol.com 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

I join in sending thanks for the poem. So healing to see the golden brocade and remember the lives just being woven into it. I, too, would like a face to go with the name. While I cannot recall meeting Janice, her thoughtful sharings have been appreciated. Blessings, Jan Ames -----Original Message----- From: Shelley Hahn <shelley.l.hahn(a)gmail.com> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Wed, Aug 7, 2013 11:17 am Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Fwd: Thanks & update I have no memory of having known Janice, but I'm not certain. Does anyone have a photograph they can share. I would really like to put a face with the name. Thanks! Shelley On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Shelley Hahn <shelley.l.hahn(a)gmail.com> wrote: Wonderful poem, Sherwodd & Eunice! Thank you for sharing with us all! Fondly, Shelley On Wed, Aug 7, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Sherwood Shankland <sherwoodshankland(a)comcast.net> wrote: Eunice and I join the chorus to celebrate the amazing journey and courage of Janice our colleague and friend. She and Abe, like Eunice and me are “Phil-Am” couples who shared the same global mix in our marriages. We almost hosted a visit to Colorado by Janice a few weeks ago, but her strength had begun to fade as she started her meds, and she called to cancel her travel plans. We are attaching a poem to celebrate her life of service and fun. G & P, Sherwood and Eunice Shankland From: oe-bounces(a)lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Holcombe Wanda Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 10:34 AM To: Colleague Dialogue Cc: Order Ecumenical Community; Colleague Dialogue Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Fwd: Thanks & update Janice...a great spirit colleague. I remember working directly with her when preparing for the ICA 50th Celebration in Austin. She was part of the long legacy that gave so much of her life to caring for others... May the Mystery that cares & sustains us all continue the care for our dear colleague Janice as she completes this journey & begins her next...... Grace & Peace Wanda Sent from my iPhone On Aug 7, 2013, at 10:47 AM, RICHARD HOWIE <rhowie3(a)verizon.net> wrote: Dear Beloved Community around the world. Here is a message that Janice Ulangca sent to Dick and me on July 25, which I hope all of you will be comforted by. Throughout this challenge in her life she remained a SPIRIT WOMAN! Love to you all, God's Grace & Peace, Ellen Howie in Altamont, NY Begin forwarded message: From: "Janice Ulangca" <aulangca(a)stny.rr.com> Date: July 25, 2013 6:12:19 PM EDT To: "Dick & Ellen Howie" <rhowie3(a)verizon.net> Subject: Thanks & update Ellen, thanks for your birthday call and your original art birthday card. I had lunch with friends that day and another lunch on the following Sat. so felt well celebrated. My treatments are going well, the oncologist said when I saw him before Chemo Four last Tuesday (July 23). The previous Tuesday I had a mid-course CT Scan. They inject dye, then have you lay down and go through the scanner. When the oncologist discussed the results, he said the breast mass which was very big can no longer be seen, and lymph nodes growths under arm almost gone. These were the only places that a full body scan in May found cancer. Each chemo starts a new cycle of needing to do nothing but respect the "war" inside, and kind of creep around taking care of myself between naps, then gradually a little more energy until next cycle starts in 21 days. I have 2 more chemo cycles - total of 6 - then 2 injections of antibodies, whatever they are - each of these 3 weeks apart. This will take me up into Oct. Does seem long. And since I don't find the energy to do much in the way of exercise, I can feel myself getting a bit weaker with each cycle. It will take some time to rebuild strength - there's a special group for cancer survivors at the Y where I had been going. This is a good time of year to go through this intensity - lots of fresh food at farm stand just a mile down the road - & farmer's mkt. when I can get there on Sat. Much better than snow on the ground! I much appreciate friends giving me rides to the hospital for the chemo - could drive there fine but driving back would be another story. Hope your summer goes well, and family's doing fine. Best to you and Dick, Janice _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Living Legacy 2007 Report - Janice Ulangca's smiling presence
by Lynda Cock 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Several people have requested a photo of Janice. I requested Tim's approval and help to forward this photo on the cover of the Living Legacy Event Report with Janice's smiling presence in the front row. I thought that this list of attendants would help people identify the persons in the photo. Thank you, Tim. Several other great souls are in that photo who are now woven into the golden brocade that Sherwood speaks of in his poetry. What a fellowship we have! Lynda Cock Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 12:10 PM To: 'Alan Gammel'; 'Anne Neal'; 'Brady Melton'; 'Carolyn Antenen'; 'Carolyn Schrader'; 'Charls DeFuria'; 'Cheryl Kartes'; 'Cheryl Zaleski'; 'Deb Burnight'; 'Don Elliott'; 'Doug and Pat Druckenmiller'; 'Duncan Holmes'; 'Elaine Stover'; 'Emma Melton'; 'Fred and Marion Emerson'; 'Janice Ulangca'; 'Ken Gilbert'; 'Kenneth and Dorcas Rose'; 'Lambert Okrah'; 'Laura Dellaca'; 'Lynda Cock'; 'Marjorie Philbrook'; 'May Domingo'; 'Mirja Hanson'; 'Nelson Stover'; 'Nino Tillman'; 'Norman and Judy Lindblad'; 'Richard Alton'; 'Richard and Ellen Howie'; 'Ruth Gilbert'; 'Sandra True'; 'Shirley Heckman Snellinig'; 'Suganya Sockalingam'; 'Susan Henderson' Subject: Living Legacy 2007 Report Dear Colleagues and Friends, On behalf of all of the Board and staff of ICA USA, we want to thank you for your attendance and wholehearted participation at the Living Legacy event held in Chicago on October 5-7, 2007. .......

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Fwd: Thanks & update
by RICHARD HOWIE 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Dear Beloved Community around the world. Here is a message that Janice Ulangca sent to Dick and me on July 25, which I hope all of you will be comforted by. Throughout this challenge in her life she remained a SPIRIT WOMAN! Love to you all, God's Grace & Peace, Ellen Howie in Altamont, NY Begin forwarded message: > From: "Janice Ulangca" <aulangca(a)stny.rr.com> > Date: July 25, 2013 6:12:19 PM EDT > To: "Dick & Ellen Howie" <rhowie3(a)verizon.net> > Subject: Thanks & update > > Ellen, thanks for your birthday call and your original art birthday > card. I had lunch with friends that day and another lunch on the > following Sat. so felt well celebrated. > > My treatments are going well, the oncologist said when I saw him > before Chemo Four last Tuesday (July 23). The previous Tuesday I > had a mid-course CT Scan. They inject dye, then have you lay down > and go through the scanner. When the oncologist discussed the > results, he said the breast mass which was very big can no longer > be seen, and lymph nodes growths under arm almost gone. These were > the only places that a full body scan in May found cancer. Each > chemo starts a new cycle of needing to do nothing but respect the > "war" inside, and kind of creep around taking care of myself > between naps, then gradually a little more energy until next cycle > starts in 21 days. I have 2 more chemo cycles - total of 6 - then 2 > injections of antibodies, whatever they are - each of these 3 weeks > apart. This will take me up into Oct. Does seem long. And since I > don't find the energy to do much in the way of exercise, I can feel > myself getting a bit weaker with each cycle. It will take some time > to rebuild strength - there's a special group for cancer survivors > at the Y where I had been going. > > This is a good time of year to go through this intensity - lots of > fresh food at farm stand just a mile down the road - & farmer's > mkt. when I can get there on Sat. Much better than snow on the > ground! I much appreciate friends giving me rides to the hospital > for the chemo - could drive there fine but driving back would be > another story. > > Hope your summer goes well, and family's doing fine. > > Best to you and Dick, > > Janice

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Fwd: Knowing and loving Janice
by Jaime R Vergara 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Alice of Sydney, Joyce of Maui, Del of Seattle, and Maya of Saipan, I trust you are keeping well. Taking after Nancy's Song, in the Saipan Tribune one day in May: OPINION Tuesday, May 21, 2013 A candle for Janice By Jaime R. Vergara Special to the Saipan Tribune American Janice of our acquaintance formerly taught in the Philippines, then married a Filipino who worked for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York. They acted as guardians (an organizational and functional category) to a social movemental force I was an active member of in the '70s and the first half of the '80s, operating out of Chicago, Illinois. We performed as a global servant (word used intentionally rather than the neutral “service”) force in human (economic, political, and social) community development. The group labored under a highly intense social engagement for almost three decades, then organizational inertia and entropy set in, but the group had enough selfhood that when it realized its meeting its own body needs replaced its passion for its mission, it intentionally dissipated out of being with the same lucidity as it did in its own analysis of the rise and decline of other organizations that preceded it. It was called Order: Ecumenical, for those of us who thought it was revolutionary to be oikumene when others were parochial in their religious orientations. Of course, being ecumenical grew old and irrelevant so fast that it is just as well the group disbanded. I've used the word “intentional” in two paragraphs now. A global network of "those who care" (nebulous but real) intentionally remained in touch while each expended one's self in one's own burst of light-into “a thousand light,” in elder George Bush's imagery. The group's program arm was actually referred to by the GOP of Orange County in U.S. congressional record as “communist,” so the group's dissipation into numerous lights in essentially GOP terminology is more descriptive rather than ideological. Janice and I exchange messages in a common listserv we are a part of once in a while, on the state of our being as well as our vocation. Slightly older than I am, she has just joined a few of my colleagues in bouts with chemotherapy. As has become customary in the last three years, I light a candle on my ledge to lift up the facticity of those in my circle of acquaintances continuing to be treasured and celebrative presence on the planet even in the midst of battling the onerous challenge of cancerous cells. I lit a candle for the late Ruth Tighe of Saipan, the honored maven of local commentators, until she gloriously downed her last swig of Scotch. She once commented that I eulogized her exit too early. She outlasted her doctor's prognosis a few years longer. She once bought me lunch at a new health food restaurant, driving to the place with her oxygen tank in tow. In her retinue, imminent death had no dominion. Our current five now includes Janice of New York joining four others from Seattle, Maui, Sydney, and Saipan. Specific as to who the candles represent, taken as a whole, they manifest our relationship to those considered by society to be “differently-abled” (including the "handicapped"). Being father to two autistic children, the act of regularly lighting candles are personally of deep significance. Janice's forte is music and the arts, and a colleague offered for her the lyrics to Cris Williamson's Song of the Soul, metaphors of the heart in a song. It turns out to be a song sung by an intentional community out of Seattle that was a result of my group's thousand light bursting. Part of the lyrics are: Love of my life I am crying I am not dying, I am dancing Dancing along in the madness There is no sadness Only the song of the soul Chorus: And we’ll sing this song Why don’t you sing along Then we can sing for a long, long time Why don’t you sing this song Then we can sing along Then we can sing for a long, long time For those who follow our reflections, they would not be surprised to see us latch into Williamson's imagery (which, we gather, may have been derived from a Walt Whitman poem). I am not dying, I am dancing fits the sentiment of one of our candle persons who went through chemo for nine months and is prone to ask, “Why are folks afraid to talk about dying?” That, and a small dynamo we know down Sydney way two-steps us to the great dance that is life! As a former Methodist clergy, one could say that we have had our share of sending off personages into the great unknown. While grief is a legitimate response to the reality of death, I used to conduct funeral services not for the dead but for the living. I did not hesitate to remind my audiences that the reason we grieve is not primarily for the departed as that the parting reminds us too vividly of our mortality. It is the affirmation of our finitude that is celebrated in the completion of a life! The song for Janice is also a song for all our lives. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! ***** -----Original Message----- From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy(a)songaia.com> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Wed, Aug 7, 2013 7:50 am Subject: [Oe List ...] Knowing and loving Janice Dear Ones, In hearing of Janice's illness, I sent her this song. It has continued to be symbolic of her life for me, one who lived a life of spirit. When you play this song, please imagine Janice waltzing to it's melody. That was her response to the music when I sent it early in her illness. Continue to dance, Janice as we celebrate your life and death with gratitude! ****** This really hits at the core of the sound of silence. 'Nite, Janice, good night! See you all in the morning!

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Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Passing of Janice
by Ellie Stock 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

We were so sorry to learn of Janice's death. We first worked together in 1970 as Rochester Region colleagues, and became good friends as our paths crossed during many ICA and other events and visits since then. As an incredible musician, she shared that gift with her church communities for many years as well as with ICA for musical dramas and other events. Personally, she helped record the music notation of several songs. But her interests and passion extended beyond music to the greater ICA community, to the mission of her urban church, to the peace-building efforts of the Binghamton area, and caring for the Earth through the Pachamama Alliance. During the last year she was part of the team that coordinated the ICA 50th Anniversary 50 events and also helped with Accelerate 77 preparation. Several times over the years she and Abe and later Janice and we planned to be at Chautauqua Institution the same week, and it was always a great week of catch-up and discussion of the themes for that particular program week as well as local/global issues. We had planned another week together last June. As her energy waned due to her chemo treatments, Janice decided she couldn't stay a whole week but was determined to come for a couple of days, which she was able to do, thanks to some good friends in Binghamton who provided transportation. During these days, she was sharing with us the outline for a retreat she was planning with others, as well as plans for a new program she wanted to start at her church. We had a great visit, hoping against hope that the chemo would be working miracles. An email a couple weeks ago sounded optimistic--scans showed no cancer in a previously cancerous place, and decreased cancer in another place. So, we were shocked to get this news today and deeply saddened. We will miss her greatly. The memory of Janice's smile, the echo of her laughter, the gentleness of her compassion, her collegiality and friendship, and the single-mindedness, tenacity, determination, and enthusiasm with which she reached out to and served the world will be a lasting legacy and vision of hope. Grace and peace, Carleton and Ellie elliestock(a)aol.com -----Original Message----- From: Timothy Wegner <tim(a)tswegner.net> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Tue, Aug 6, 2013 2:23 pm Subject: [Dialogue] Passing of Janice To friends of Janice... I regret to tell you Janice passed away a few days ago. We will all miss her presence, her gifts and her generosity of spirit. Services will be held Wednesday, August 14th at First UMC Church in Endicott, NY at the corner of McKinley and Monroe Streets. Friends are welcome at 11 am to meet with family and friends, the service is at noon followed by a luncheon for those who can stay. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts are suggested for the church. Thank you for your gift of friendship to her through the years. Peace Amy Fleming _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net

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Janice's gifts
by Terry Bergdall 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Ellen Howie has been in contact with people close to Janice Ulangca in Binghamton, NY, and learned that she died in peace at home in her bed. She and Dick plan to attend the funeral next Wednesday on behalf of our community. You might recall yesterday on this listserv that Marge Philbrook announced her decision about allotting an $8,500 donation from an anonymous donor to celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday. It is appropriate now to reveal that this gift was from Janice. When I saw Marge’s email early this morning, I wrote to Janice. Now, of course, I know that she never read it. However, my message conveys something about her special qualities as a human being that seem a fitting way to celebrate her completed life. Here is what I wrote: “Janice, you gave a truly creative gift to Marge. She's brooded long and hard (enjoying every minute of it) about the best way to divvy-up 85 hundred dollars. She also has remained extremely curious about the identity of the donor. She thinks she’s being coy as she regularly drops leading comments to staff in our finance office with a hope that someone might spill the beans. This is an ongoing gift that keeps on giving: Marge is honored again and again every time she thinks about it! Janice, you came up with a genuinely sensitive and life-affirming idea for a gift. Thank very much.” Grace and Peace, Terry

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Re: [Oe List ...] Some thoughts about the future
by Bill Parker 07 Aug '13

07 Aug '13

Greetings, I prefer "the human community" networked but working in a multitude of manifestations toward what is of primary value. When we are talking about faith traditions we are talking about something that crystalized for a moment in history an articulation of life, what it meant to be fully human (both liberated, humble, and a servant), and how that understanding of being human was manifest in a human community. The sources underlying this are the basis of evolution and the health of the species. When we move into poetry with this before it is manifested in relationships it becomes abstract and raises questions that must be answered before anyone knows whether they want to be a part of it or not. The poetry comes out of life and music comes out of community. We live in a time where that must be new. The "missional" images of our work (environment, those who care) and concerns we have (prisons, education) as the primary metaphors only serve to delimit the overarching purpose of a community of humanness. And it obscures the essential nature of developing the core that connects the vast array of engagement in order that each dimension can have a system impact for the future. Just thinking..... Bill Parker ----- Original Message ----- From: Jack Gilles To: Order Ecumenical Community Sent: Monday, June 24, 2013 1:02 PM Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Some thoughts about the future Dear All, Herman has started a new and profound dialogue. This is indeed what we were aiming at with our creation of the Springboard group and list serve years ago. There is no doubt that there is a core of us who feel deeply about the need to relate together in a proactive role in a number of domains. It was the basis of the Springboard that the Order decision so many of us participated in transcends any particular manifestation, and many of us consider ourselves "Order" until death. I believe, like Herman, the existence of a self-conscious Order is something to seriously consider. All of us have encountered people who never heard of the ICA/EI/OE but would see themselves as part of the "Invisible College", "The League" etc. and would find a covenanted body meaningful. The key question is "for what end" would it be? I have always liked the name "Order of the Earth" (OE) as a holding category and shifts the relationship from religion to Ecology (in the most profound sense). Anyway, I an certain that not everyone on this list serve wants to participate in this conversation, but I'll let others suggest at what point we would shift to either a newly created list serve, or perhaps better, into Google docs. and eventually Google Hangouts. But we need to, at some point, begin to move toward some collaborative 'doing', even if that doing is some research and/or some corporate writing. Let the dialogue continue. Thanks Herman, Jann, Jim etc. Jack On Jun 24, 2013, at 8:27 AM, Herman Greene <hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com> wrote: Excellent Jann, ESI is something in which various organizations can collaborate without losing their identity. On the issue of a new teaching force, a new EI (either Ecumenical Institute around John Cock's redefinition of ecumenical) or an Ecozoic Institute drawing on Thomas Berry's understanding of that term but not making it a Thomas Berry institute) is something that I am probably in a strong minority in thinking about. The gist of the idea is that OE would turn over to a new generation an understanding of pedagogy around a new core curriculum. As I see it that would be a curriculum developed in the collaboration that ESI is, but there is also the possibility that some group would take it on as a project and there would be nothing wrong with that effort becoming organized. As I was going through materials yesterday from OE, I came across two article by Bill Parker on the new pedagogy. We are thinking along the same lines. They are both presented below and I can send them as attachments to anyone who asks for them. In one Bill makes this salient point: "The circumstances of our environment can no longer use facilitation as the awakenment tool at first. We are living in a time in which a “new pedagogy” must come into being; not facilitation of everyone’s mixed up and confused thinking." In the other Bill makes this point: "None of us as individuals woke up until someone awakened us personally. Only then did we grasp that we could be a skilled pedagogue awakening and training thousands in a new pedagogy for the sake of awakening the world to a new way of being human. " I too look forward to substantive dialogue around this. See articles below. Herman Colleagues, Speaking of the New Pedagogy, which implies a new pedagogue, perhaps the obvious needs to be pointed out. Here are some thoughts about the emerging shape of the New Pedagogy as seen through the presence of the new pedagogue. The New Pedagogy is remarkably different from anything we have ever done in our past because the pedagogue is completely different from the pedagogue of the past, even if the pedagogues are the same person. The pedagogue of the 60’s was not global, in spite of one’s self story, nor had the pedagogue of the 60’s spent 30 years living the Dark Night of the Soul. The 60’s pedagogue had no understanding of the terrain and topography of the other world in the midst of this world, the Kingdom of God, I believe Jesus called it. The old pedagogue had no first hand knowledge of what the pedagogy of the oppressed was nor how it worked in every land of the planet until they went there and did it. The old pedagogue had no clue as to how to be sustained in a solitary and self-sufficient life. The pedagogue of the 60’s was naïve about the world and about the consequences of not being responsible globally, theologically, or economically, as the human condition and the condition of the planet reveal so clearly today. The Pedagogue of the 60’s saw ecumenism insofar as the Christian community was concerned and not as a vehicle for global peace and diversity through interaction of an inter-faith community. The pedagogy of the past was but a prelude to the pedagogy we are now putting together. The pedagogue of the past was but a spiritual shadow of the pedagogues you have become today. But we must shake off our stylistic compromises and our preferred prejudices we acquired in order to be imminently presentable to our chosen markets, if we are to build the earth. We cannot keep doing what we have been doing, we cannot simply wrap our arms around everything everyone is doing and say that is it, we must courageously embrace a new role, take a new risk, embrace an open future, address the global contradiction and see to it that what needs to be done is getting done. None of us as individuals woke up until someone awakened us personally. Only then did we grasp that we could be a skilled pedagogue awakening and training thousands in a new pedagogy for the sake of awakening the world to a new way of being human. We live in urgent times now and our time is short. If we are going to move on this moment, now is the time to move. There is no doubt we have been prepared by the fire of life for this. The only question is who will. There is no new pedagogy nor new pedagogue without embodying that which is being disclosed in the style of the pedagogy. RSI changed our lives because the pedagogues were living their pedagogy! That reality was the methodology. We, too, are called to be that embodiment regardless of whether we say yes or no to what history is asking us to do. With profound respect, take care for there is little time and so much to do. Grace and Peace be unto you. Bill Given at the People of the Order Gathering July 14, 15, 2010 By Bill Parker THE NEW ORDER WITNESS It was remarkable to see the twenty or thirty people of the Order come to Oklahoma and participate in the Symposium with OCU faculty and OIKOS student scholars. The gathering was like nothing else and that special, unique relationship among the People of the Order was manifest again. We have come a great distance together and alone. Who we were as a community of people marked a reality still having a major impact on people’s lives. If you don’t believe me, ask Jim Wheeler, who just bore witness in the Wheeler Declaration and in what he just now shared with us. We were a community transparently grounded in the faith tradition of the Church. Our mission to the world took us deeply into the great tradition of the Christian faith. Everything we said, thought and did was carefully understood to be building on the great tradition of the faith. We probed deeply into the historical church before we decided to move directly into the world and demonstrate what the Church looked like in mission on behalf of all. Our mission to the world took us to places where we all discovered something far more was required of us, something new; something capable of sustaining a pluriform community in mission. We could no longer function as a transparently grounded community of the Christian tradition: we were diverse, and yet we needed new myths, rites, and symbols, as well as a practical corporate discipline. In this turning point, we moved to a secular discipline based upon the most common denominator: “Those who care”. We encountered a fork in the road and we took this one and became the Institute of Cultural Affairs. Now, I am not criticizing our decision. It was exactly what we needed to have done, as painful as that turned out to be. What we did sustained the movement and demonstrated an entirely new, radical and effective method for sustainable human development the world over. But for us, the Order, over time, over a stretch of a decade, the foundation of our spirit life was experienced as cloudy, or shallow. Yet we could not go back. We had become global, spiritually global, and we had gone beyond the Christian faith tradition to a pluriform tradition, or no tradition. THE NEW TIMES Eboo Patel, in his book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, says the divisions in the world today are in inter-faith relationships. But, the divisions are not between Christian and Muslim, or Muslims and Jews, or Hindu and Christian. The line that divides all faiths is between the Religious Totalitarians and the Religious Pluriformists within all faith traditions. The Religious Totalitarians isolate themselves and think of themselves as superior, or even cultivate hate toward those who look or believe differently from themselves. While the Religious Pluriformists embrace diversity of faith, culture and practice, and seek peace and community by working together toward a better world. That is the global division that threatens everything the human community has worked to achieve. The remarkable fact in this division is that Religious Totalitarians have for decades invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the careful training, mentoring, and encouraging of the rising generations about what it means to be human. They have nurtured the younger generations ever so carefully in racial or religious hatred and the accompanying self-righteousness as a true picture of reality. They have built and staffed Universities, High Schools, Middle Schools, Elementary Schools, and even day care to groom more toward that way of seeing reality. They have training camps to get them prepared for the “holy” struggle. While this is going on, during the same decades, the Religious Pluriformists have invested practically zero in the special nurturing formation and development of the rising generations toward the desirability and necessity of a world of pluriformity and diversity. Patel walks us through the known terrorists and the violent groups developing rapidly in this country and around the world during the past few years. He points out that it is the young who are committing the terrorist’s acts, as they give their lives to it. They are hardly old enough to know what they are doing but the older men behind them are mentoring them in what their faith tradition means, pushing them toward notions of superiority, hatred of differences of other people, violence and acts of terrorism. All the while the men behind these young people are providing assurances that their violent acts are pure, necessary, and are the will of God. They assure the rising generation that these beliefs, attitudes, and actions are the fulfillment of their lives, climaxed by dying for the struggle. The time is now for all those wanting a culture of peace, diversity and pluriformity to make a bold decision. We have come to a historic moment in our life where we are facing another fork in the road. Jim Wheeler, the author of the Wheeler Declaration, says when the Order came to that fork in the road in 1970-1971 it chose the ICA, the secular option; it left the other fork, the Ecumenical Institute fork, because of the difficulties its Christian tradition created in the diverse situations in which we were located. He adds, however, that the unrealized opportunities never go away. They only remain in the unconscious until circumstances call them forth as a necessity and that is precisely where we are today. We had that possibility in 1970-1971, because we understood ourselves to be living out of a New Religious Mode, to become the global, interfaith Ecumenical Institute but we chose not to and for very good reasons. We had to go through that which we went through, where the bottom fell out from under us, and we were shattered over time, and ultimately called ourselves out of being as an Order in 1988. We were not prepared to move forward as the Ecumenical Institute in a global, interfaith way and had we done so at that time, we would have become just another Religious Totalitarian community. God saved us from that. Returning to that fork in the road is precisely what is happening today. The circumstances of our environment can no longer use facilitation as the awakenment tool at first. We are living in a time in which a “new pedagogy” must come into being; not facilitation of everyone’s mixed up and confused thinking that yields a sense of hopelessness and cynicism except on a most reduced scale. We have to cut through all of the popular rubbish and undergrowth to reach the individual center of people’s lives so they may have the possibility of deciding for themselves what it means to be a human being today, in this moment and circumstance. If you don’t see the differences I am pointing to in facilitation and pedagogy, then you do not understand what I am trying to say. I may need to find a better way to say this. THE NEW PEDAGOGY This returning to the fork does not mean we return to the old pedagogy and the old courses, but rather a “new pedagogy” based upon grounding of Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, or other faith traditions. Pedagogy is something we have all got to relearn. We have embraced our role as facilitators for 40 years and we cannot facilitate this awakenment. It requires pedagogy that slices through the peripheral to the depths of the human soul. This is the cutting edge today! This new pedagogy is the awakenment task before us. In this context, facilitation is our tool kit, our hammer and screwdriver, for engagement but not our edge for awakenment. What we have been doing with OIKOS and OCU, Centenary University, and other associations is getting access to the rising generations, who by way of the secular and scientific cultural realities, have never been given the possibility of their own faith traditions as grounded in life and having those traditions interpret the meaning of their lives. Instead, they swirl around in confusion, trying to interpret and make sense of their faith tradition and its relationship to their lives in particular. Patel describes himself as being raised in a secular Muslim family in America. He visited his Islamic family in India: Grandmother, aunts, and other members of their household. He was aware of knowing he was a member of a faith tradition but actually not relating to it very much in real life. After many years, during prayer to observe Laylatul Qadr, the night in Ramadan when the Qur’an was first revealed, on New Year’s Eve, the turn of the millennium, he had a moment in his life when he was struck with a stark clarity: he, Eboo Patel, was part of the story of Islam, he was a part of the story of pluralism, he was part of the story of the spiritual principal of human togetherness. He saw himself not as a member of a faith tradition but as one who is a carrier of his faith tradition and a part of the larger story. THE NEW ORDER This is where you can see the 21st Century Spirit Movement. It is a vast, expansive global movement of the spirit. It is diversified and it is already located in every aspect of human civilization. But, it must be declared! And we are the ones who can do that and do it on the foundation of our faith traditions, whatever those traditions may be. So, when we look at our past journey, it is not surprising to see how strong our growth was when we were standing on a faith tradition reaching back to the beginning of time, thousands of years. Then we entered a decade or so of a new secular faith tradition that went all the way back to 1970-1971. Now we stand at a crucial vantage point to see that we are about the transparent grounding of every faith tradition in order to bring the faith continuum from the beginning of time into the present and future. Only this will enable the care of this world by creating a culture of peace, economic justice, and planetary sustainability. We need to pursue the avenues of accessing the rising generations, to be among them, to be a grounded presence of knowledge and experience from which they can access the foundations for creating the future. However, before this can happen, we must corporately work through the current perversions blocking people from having the opportunity to make a decision about what it means for them to be human. We have been called to awaken a new generation of pedagogues in the ranks of the rising generations, and provide the solid, sustaining, historical foundations upon which they can provide leadership for the 21st Century Spirit Movement. They will, themselves, become the face of their own faith traditions in caring for the world and shaping the world to come into a culture of peace and working together. If you remember our first decade, then you know how important our cultic acts were to everything we understood about life. Over time, we lost what we understood for so many years as “that without which” there is no sustaining substance. I realized, as I looked into it, that corporately we lost any sense of the cultic practices long before 1988. When I did decide, not long ago, to live out of a spiritual discipline with a continuum of faith going farther back than 1971, I looked for the only cultic acts I knew which had connected me to all the past, present and future: the Daily Office and the Common Meal. I wanted to see them for analytical reasons at first: to see their components, then the phrasing, and how they connected to time. The work on spiritual practices and consciousness by Pat Webb and David McCleskey of the Silence Foundation and Larry Ward of the Lotus Institute, reminded me of the necessity of cultic acts for one’s consciousness, quality of life, and care for the world. I realized that my own practices did not go back beyond memories prior to 1971. So I decided to review what I once new about our cultic practices and I found I had forgotten most of it and suspected I was not alone. I started searching for a Daily Office in my files, on our various websites, and in the Golden Pathways CD but I could not find the Daily Office I remembered! I could only find something that had been transcribed into something else and my experience of the change was that someone had taken out the cultic nature of the Daily Office resulting in what appeared to me as several levels of higher abstraction. What I found started with “In the Name of the Creator. And of the Redeemer. And of the Sustainer. Amen.” This edited version did not strike me as a “cultic act” coming out of all the past, over thousands of years. The cultic act I remembered was “In the Name of the Father. And of the Son, And of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” That was cultic! How much I had forgotten and I wondered about others. What do we not understand about a cultic act? It is an act for all time: past, present, and future. It is not something we edit to conform to some pressures of the culture. If we do, we create a different cultic act not necessarily connected to the faith tradition. So, I spent several days pulling my hair out trying to remember every phrase of the Daily Office and writing it, piece by piece, putting in the cultic language. As I worked on this I realized the Daily Office became a solitary discipline for me which connected me to a tradition going back to the beginning of time. I had a cultic act upon which to again ground my life in my faith tradition. I am glad I did that; it has transformed my awareness of my own life and the understanding of the life around me. I look forward to examining the Common Meal as well. As Jim Wheeler said when he quoted from Isaiah in the Wheeler Declaration: “Look to the Rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” We know now that everything we did was in part dedicated to developing skilled pedagogues who understood the power of cultic acts. Do you remember all those pedagogy weekends we had, or if it was not a pedagogy weekend it was a course that needed to be taught? Do you remember how our faculty was structured so that pedagogical training was a co-objective of every course we taught? Think also of the operations of the corporate life of the Religious Houses, all focused on pedagogical development of everyone in the House. That was how pedagogical formation happened: we lived it, we took everyone under our wing for the sake of their formation, and it wasn’t just practice, it was working in the presence of the Order who was grounded in their faith tradition and who became the transcendence of that faith tradition to the world. This is what we have been called to do and it has required all of our past to prepare us to say yes and to assume the role. And you know something really neat about this historical moment for us? We don’t have to wait to see what the ICA decides, or does. Nor do we need to wait to see what Mark Davies decides, or OCU, or OIKOS. This is a decision we can make right now, here in this room, here with these people. We can now leave the old Order Ecumenical behind. We can decide to be a new Order, the same in some ways, but totally transformed by our past life as a Religious/Secular Order and our journey through the Dark Night of the Soul. Born anew for a new time, a new age, a new pedagogy, and a new Order, the Global Inter-Faith Ecumenical Order! This Order is not to be structured like the past Order but it already is self-sufficient in its covenant to a corporate life and mission. It is an Order of individuals who know that engagement in a specific daily spiritual discipline is the basis for everything else. Wherever there are two or more the Order will have a corporate celebration weekly or monthly. There shall be a quarterly planning council for the global mission, the great work. There shall be an annual Order Council for the work of accounting and strategic commitments. The Order shall study together such missionally focused work as Eboo Patel’s book, for example. Now, I am going to stop and let the rest of you have a chance to tell me how wrong I am. Thank you -- __________________________________________________ Herman F. Greene 2516 Winningham Road Chapel Hill, NC 27516 919-942-4358 (ph & fax) hfgreenenc(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Knowing and loving Janice
by Nancy Lanphear 06 Aug '13

06 Aug '13

Dear Ones, In hearing of Janice's illness, I sent her this song. It has continued to be symbolic of her life for me, one who lived a life of spirit. When you play this song, please imagine Janice waltzing to it's melody. That was her response to the music when I sent it early in her illness. Continue to dance, Janice as we celebrate your life and death with gratitude! SONG OF THE SOUL by Cris Williamson Open my eyes that I may see, Glimpses of truth thou hast for me. Open my eyes, illumine me, Spirit divine. Love of my life I am crying I am not dying, I am dancing Dancing along in the madness There is no sadness Only the song of the soul cho: And we'll sing this song Why don't you sing along Then we can sing for a long, long time Why don't you sing this song Then we can sing along Then we can sing for a long, long time What do you do for a living Are you forgiving, giving shelter Follow your heart, love will find you Truth will unbind you Seek out a song of the soul Come to your life like a warrior Nothing will bore yer, you can be happy Let in the light, it will heal you And you can feel you Sing out a song of the soul Love of my life I am crying I am not dying, I am dancing Dancing along in the madness There is no sadness Only the song of the soul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVyWFFhmx6k With love, Nancy YouTube - Videos from this email

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